THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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UN agency ‘ready to facilitate talks’

UN agency ‘ready to facilitate talks’

Anti-junta group petitions office for an end to violations by military.

THE Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has offered to facilitate talks between the government and its opponents, an academic who met with the agency said yesterday. 
Anusorn Unno, a key member of the Thai Academic Network for Civil Rights (TANC), said that Laurent Meillan, acting regional representative of the UN Human Rights Office for Southeast Asia, made this offer during his meeting with delegates from the network. 
The group yesterday filed a petition with Meillan raising questions about allegedly rampant human-rights violations by the military’s ruling National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).
The petition urged the agency to take a firm stance against the military-led government and bring the alleged human-rights infringements to an immediate end. 
Anusorn, who is also a lecturer at Thammasat University, said the Bangkok branch of the UN Human Rights Office welcomed his group’s appeal. 
The agency said the issue would be addressed directly by its headquarters in Geneva, so it could pressure the government to adhere to international treaties ratified by the Kingdom earlier. 
 
Flying to Geneva for meeting
The agency also promised to help facilitate future talks between the junta and its opponents, Anusorn said. 
“So far, opposition groups have not had any chance to initiate talks or even bring up topics that they want to discuss with the powers-that-be,” he said. “Instead, it has always been the government that violates the law and harasses the opponents using different strategies, including detaining them for the so-called ‘attitude adjustment’ sessions.” 
Another TANC member, Pichit Likitkijsomboon, an economics lecturer at Thammasat University, told The Nation that some of the group’s members would soon fly to Geneva to discuss the relevant issues at the UN agency’s headquarters. 
In yesterday’s petition, TANC informed the UN Human Rights Office of the current human-rights situation in Thailand. They claimed that the junta had continually violated citizens’ rights by using unlimited power under Article 44 of the 2014 interim charter and the NCPO’s orders No 3/2015 and 13/2016.
Those two orders give the military authority to detain civilians and confiscate their belongings without requiring a warrant, and the authorities use these edicts to take people into custody to undergo what is euphemistically called an “attitude adjustment” session.
In reference to the arrest and legal action being taken against anti-junta activists, the group also cited a recent incident where eight Facebook users were detained for allegedly being involved in online posts that lampooned the junta chief, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. They have consequently been charged with breaching the Computer Crime Act and Article 116 of the criminal code prohibiting seditious acts. Some of them were further charged of lese majeste, the appeal read.
TANC claimed in its petition that the NCPO’s actions towards its dissenters were excessive. If the mockery is an insult based on false information, the junta chief can sue for defamation and instead of resorting to harsh punishment for the “violation of state security”. 
Hence the group said it was necessary for the UN Human Rights Office to step in and help assist the improvement of the rights situation in the country. 
Though the petition came not long after the eight Facebookers were detained and charged, Anusorn and Pichit said the petition was not specifically motivated by this incident. Instead, the group has always been connected to the UN agency, which offered it the aforementioned approaches to curb human-rights violations in the country. 
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